CFIA FA3STnet (Federated Advanced/Adaptive/Anticipatory S&T Networks)
Antimicrobial Resistance
Challenge and Impact for Canadians:
The need for a FA3STnet to enhance surveillance and control of antimicrobial usage, nosocomial
infection outbreaks due to antimicrobial resistance, and to improve stewardship of existing
antimicrobials.
Antimicrobial resistance is a serious and growing global public health threat with profound
impacts on our healthcare system, global trade, agriculture, environment, and health and food
sectors. Resistance is largely due to the impacts of antimicrobial treatments, patient’s not
finishing prescription regimens, and use in livestock as growth promotants. Each year in
Canada, more than 18,000 hospitalized patients acquire infections resistant to antimicrobials.
Rationale for this FA3STnet:
 The federal government recognizes addressing the growing threat of AMR in Canada is a
shared responsibility, and recently released its Antimicrobial Resistance and Use in
Canada: A Federal Framework for Action, which serves as a starting point for a
collaborative response.
 The goal of the Framework is to protect Canadians from the health risks related to
antimicrobial resistance. It includes three pillars: Surveillance, Stewardship, and
Innovation. The federal role for AMR is included in the mandate of several departments.
 A clear federal S&T role is outlined in the Antimicrobial Resistance National framework.
The federal strategy cites federal responsibility for promoting health, preventing and
controlling disease, brokering knowledge and facilitating innovation, tracking and
monitoring disease threats, and ensuring the safety of antimicrobial products and all
foods sold and prepared in Canada. It specifically identifies PHAC, EC, HC, CFIA, and
AAFC as having a role to play.
 An AMR FA3STnet has the potential to form a research foundation that will enable
responses to emerging issues as well as to support the development of new
antimicrobials. Addressing AMR will require innovative thinking across research and
policy disciplines, and would benefit from an integrated federal approach. The FA3STnet
could include two major themes:
 S&T efforts to enhance the integration of related programs such as Canadian
Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (CARSS) and Canadian Integrated
Program for Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance (CIPARS). This area of work
also has the potential to provide increased protection to our health and
environment by supporting such interdepartmental programs.
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S&T efforts to examine factors within the food production continuum which are
contributing to the rise of the microbial AMR burden and to foster new food
production practices and tools to forestall the entry into the food chain. The
occurrence of AMR bacteria in the food production chain is an emerging food
safety hazard with widespread implications for public health. Foods represent a
primary interface between the microbial world and humans, and the overall
burden of AMR traits within the food microbiota to which humans are exposed is
an important issue that needs to be addressed in a horizontal and integrated
fashion.
AMR has recently been identified by the Genomics Research and Development Initiative
(GRDI) as one of two top priorities for Phase VI interdepartmental Shared priority
research.
Partners:
 The Federal Framework sets the stage for broader, more cohesive engagement and
action, and notes that internationally, Canada co-leads, through the Canadian Institutes
of Health Research, the European Union's Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial
Resistance, which supports research on novel strategies for overcoming antimicrobial
resistance and the sustainable use of antimicrobials to treat infectious diseases.
 Antimicrobial resistance is a high international priority (e.g., World Health Organization
Global Plan, CIHR-funded Canada-U.K. partnership). Beyond the Government of Canada,
provinces and territories, academia, animal and human health professionals, food
production stakeholders, animal producer groups and farmers, as well as private
industry each hold essential levers to reduce AMR.
 This FA3STnet has the potential to bridge the health and environment SBDAs, as it
touches on farm animals, food and feed and impacts on human health, drinking water,
and the fate of emerging AMR and chemicals into the environment.
 There is existing capacity with AAFC; CFIA; EC; HC; NRC; and PHAC.